“Everyone look! Come and see the breathtaking wonders of our God. For He brings both ruin and revival. He’s the one who makes conflicts end throughout the earth, breaking and burning every weapon of war. Surrender your anxiety. Be still and realize that I am God. I am God above all the nations, and I am exalted throughout the whole earth. Here He stands! The Commander! The mighty Lord of Angel armies is on our side! The God of Jacob fights for us! Pause in His Presence.” Psalms 46:8-11 TPT.

With everything that is going on in this world today, we just have to give all that stuff over to Him and let God be God. Mainly because we have no clue how to negotiate such a mess. Human beings can use up an awful lot of energy trying to control things in this life. As I’ve said before, other people do not have your script. And even if you carefully explain your plans – that doesn’t mean others are going to like them! Plus what other people want probably won’t fit in with our seemingly fantastic thoughts and desires. and so they can and will object. Sometimes very loudly! It can be extremely difficult to let go of things when we think we know the way stuff should go.

I just want to say today, that for many years the Lord had to practically arm wrestle me, to get me to let go of things I really had no control over in the first place – but I wanted to control them anyway! In my current physical circumstances I have had to learn to let everything go, because nowadays I can barely control my body, let alone other people! But back then I would pray pretty, nice-sounding prayers to try to convince the Lord to see things my way, because I was quite sure I knew what was the best outcome.

And before you look at me sideways, I’m guessing that we all do that? “I want what YOU want Lord,” is such a hard prayer to pray. It kind of gets stuck somewhere in our throats. I have some theories about why it is that is true. I don’t think we know our Heavenly Father’s Ways well enough and sometimes … we just plain don’t trust Him. Even though the bible is chock full of descriptions of how trustworthy He is! Go figure. Plus, we have Jesus Himself as a living, documented example of His Father’s attitudes toward human beings. And yet, sometimes, depending on how important the matter is – we still don’t trust Him. It seems to me that our finite minds cannot grasp God’s goodness on a grand scale. 

What to do? Admit your fault! That’s what I do, I tell Him I really don’t trust Him enough to take care of my kids, my life, my health, my family, my church, my future. Meanwhile, you can see that problem immediately can’t you? 🙄  It’s that sneaky little word ‘my.’ When I find myself grasping at things, trying to make them work somehow, it means that I’ve taken over again. However, I have learnt to stop, and assess where my confidence in His goodness went.

And most of the time it will be an area where things did not go the way I thought they should. Maybe they even got worse. That unpleasant land of worse …or even some unanswered prayers … these things have taught me something over the years. I got desperate enough to find out why I was reacting like that.  Brother James helped me out. “You ask [God for something] and do not receive it, because you ask with wrong motives [out of selfishness or with an unrighteous agenda], so that [when you get what you want] you may spend it on your [hedonistic] desires.” James 4:3. Oh! How I’ve hated that verse!

Meanwhile, I could easily explain why my motivations were pure and kind … just ask me. 😶 Yet somehow, even at my age!… I still hate the word – “No!” So I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t like hard stuff much. I want my life to be easy and I want it to suit me. And changing that thought process has taken me down some very difficult roads. Like I’ve said before, I came from a time where ‘you are the Lord’s favourite kid’ was preached from the pulpit. I really liked that kind of sermon BTW. But because of that kind of teaching I had a wrong concept about Who was God and who wasn’t. Sigh … and it wasn’t me. Everybody out there should breathe a sigh of relief about that fact, believe me! I’d be appalling at it. I’d probably smite people first and say “whoops” afterwards. Fortunately, I’ve learnt some stuff since back there, but I still catch myself doing it!

I’ve written about this today because it occurred to me that this self-elevation may not only be my problem. If your prayers are going unanswered, check to see if He wants you to persevere … and if He doesn’t … then give up! Quickly! God obviously has much bigger, better plans than we do – and we need to use these kinds of opportunities to repent and be transformed. Perhaps we also need to learn to pray to endure, rather than be fished out of difficult circumstances. And … let God be God. He’s good at it. 👋🏻